There is a growing awareness for the importance of hearing protection through use of earplugs in high-noise environments. The need for ear protection arises in a variety of situations ranging from work-related noise (factories, chainsaws, lawn mowers), to entertainment and recreational venues, such as concerts, fireworks displays, large sports events, hunting, or target practice. Often in these situations, the earplug user is also wearing glasses—whether prescription glasses, sport glasses, sunglasses, or safety glasses. Given fashion trends, eyeglass designs now come in a wide range and variety—with some temple bars still in the traditional angled or bent shape for retention such as when the user bends over; while many other designs, including many types of safety glasses, are designed to have straight temple bars that also apply pressure to the sides of the user's head for retention. Some temple bars still reflect the traditional narrow size and design with minor flange at the distal end; other commonly seen designs have wider arms and/or large, flared/flanged ends for fashion purposes and/or to apply additional pressure against the user's head. Recent designs in safety glasses give them the appearance of sport glasses.
There are several earplug systems and devices in the prior art that may be used in combination with glasses. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,340,227 discloses an ear plug system either removably connected to the distal end of the arms of glasses or permanently positioned within the arms, wherein an ear plug is attached to a cord that is stored within a recoil device. The user draws the cord stored within the recoil device and thereafter inserts the earplug into the ear. The system is attached to the arm glasses by a connector designed to snugly fit about the distal end of the arms of glasses.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,082,855 discloses an attachment for safety eyeglasses including a mount on the eyeglass temple bar, an earplug, and a coupling wire wound into a tight helix for storage between the rear of the outer ear and the skull to minimize earplug motion when the earplug is not inserted into the ear canal. The mount is a tube of elastomeric material (thermoplastic rubber) designed with a larger front end hole and a smaller rear end hole for expansion over the temple bar by elastic stretching resulting in high friction holding the mount to the temple bar. The elastic tube tightly grips the temple bar to avoid rattling.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,541,677 discloses a vision-hearing protection device including a retraction feature wherein earplugs may be quickly pulled in toward a retainer for storage. The ends of the device are designed to resiliently stretch over and frictionally engage the arms of the glasses.
Common to each of these devices is the need for a user to apply fine motor control to insert the device through stretching of elastomeric or rubberized materials onto and over the distal ends of the arms of glasses. Secure mounting of the devices is not possible unless the distal ends of the glasses are shaped such that the mounting portions of the device can fit tightly around them. The connector and mount systems in the prior art are designed for snug attachment and high friction connection over the distal ends of the eyeglass arms, thereby necessitating fine motor manual manipulation, time, and effort, to stretch and adequately position the systems onto the glasses. The systems cannot be mounted and removed on different shaped ends of eyeglass arms, including large, flange-ended eyeglass arms. They present a particular challenge for mounting onto glasses when wearing gloves. Given the need for the devices to snugly fit around and against the distal ends of arms of glasses for high-friction contact, the systems are severely limited in the type, shape and width of arms upon which they can be mounted and are not easy to mount.
Accordingly, there is an unmet need in the prior art for an earplug device to be used in combination with eyeglasses that is quick and simple to insert and remove from the temple bars of eyeglasses of various designs, angles, shapes and widths, yet which is secure, comfortable, and hardly noticeable to the wearer of the device.